Relocation Escrow for Ventura and Oxnard Landlords

Ventura County landlords work under a patchwork. California’s statewide law sets a floor of 1 month relocation assistance for qualifying no fault evictions, but individual cities can and do go further. Two of the county’s biggest cities wrote their own rules, and the numbers are different enough to change an eviction decision.

Oxnard: The Strictest Numbers in the County

Under Oxnard’s Tenant Protection Ordinance, a landlord serving a no fault eviction owes relocation assistance equal to 2 months of rent or $5,000, whichever is greater, paid within 15 calendar days of serving the notice. Miss that window and the eviction can collapse. The ordinance lives in Chapter 27 of the Oxnard City Code and covers most residential tenancies in the city.

Ventura City: The Lighter Standard

The City of San Buenaventura runs a just cause ordinance with a lower relocation requirement of 1 month for no fault evictions, along with its own notice rules and timelines. Landlords operating in both cities, or near the border, cannot use one playbook for both portfolios.

Why Landlords Escrow the Payments

Direct payment works until a tenant claims the check never arrived or the amount was wrong, and by then the landlord is inside a contested eviction with no documentation. Escrow holds the full amount, releases against each tenant’s written confirmation, and produces a paper trail timed to the statutory deadline. We broke down the tradeoffs in our comparison of relocation escrow versus direct payment, and the documentation argument wins most arguments before they start.

Multi unit buildings multiply the risk: six units means six payments, six confirmations, and one hard deadline. Secured Trust Escrow administers relocation escrows for landlords across Oxnard, Ventura, and the unincorporated county, sized from single family rentals to apartment buildings.